November 10th, 1991 - The Elephant Vanishes
Dear TNY,
I guess the story for this week is “The Elephant Vanishes”.
I say “I guess” because, as a battle-hardened non-subscriber, I don’t have full access to your online materials nor do I get paper copies (I was at a writing conference in Pebble Beach, CA, a hot minute ago and people were talking about different literary magazines and their design elements, ultimately concluding which magazines were worth putting on the shelf (for their look alone, regardless of content) and which magazines were chuckable; the overwhelming consensus about your paper copies is that they’re an infestation, finding their way into every room, under furniture, inside drawers, needlessly blanketing usable surfaces, and the only thing to do with a paper copy of TNY, without reading it (because they accumulate too quickly to read), is to take it out of the mailbox and immediately throw it into the recycle bin). And by not having full access or paper, it’s hard to figure out which week you choose as the throwback week.
It seems this week is the throwback week, though, based on my sleuthing. If it isn’t, then here I am looking like a dullard as I review this Murakami story from 1991. And if it is the throwback week, here I am looking like a dullard doing the same goddamn thing. The stories may change, baby, but this little dynamo of insanity stays the same!
Just kidding. But only kidding about the change part. I’d like to change. In fact, I need to change.
Three days ago was Ben’s memorial. And I was afraid of the emotions, man. The real. Ben existed mostly on my phone. Sometimes as more than an hour of voice messages a day. But still, that’s just phone. Sure, I saw him in real life. I’ve spent time with him. But the last time I saw him was September of 2021. So, you know, not that much. Adults who meet around an event like a low-residency MFA, they typically don’t live in the same place. We would meet in the summer and bask in the white-hot heat of the creativity and fellowship of our literary program and then blast off to parts far and wide. So going to his little hamlet, the matter (namely his death) had no choice but to become real.
And it did. The moment that Dan and I walked into Ben’s local bar (the day before the memorial), we asked which seat he would frequent and a man overheard Ben’s name and came over to shake our hands and say, “I talked to him every day; I made him talk to me.” And then this man, a very Alaskan man (he was chewed up, fam; you feel me?), his eyes got wet and he walked away with his head down. It was then that I knew I might have had access to Ben in a way that few did, but these people were in his physical space. They touched him. They looked into his eyes. They saw his fucking face.
But the next day the realness ratcheted all the way up. The day of the memorial.
When I got to Ben’s wife’s house and saw his youngest kid (of three) and hugged his wife, I was just a wet blanket. I had an ocean of tears at the backs of my eyes and I had no idea how I was supposed to get through reading his obituary. Or even get through the day. I couldn’t get through a hug. Or look at a picture. Or, really, anything. A giant fucking wet bag. But then we got to the pavilion at the park next to the river. We did set up. People came. Ben’s older two kids showed up and they were both wearing ponchos, and that was its own monumental sadness. And his Marine friends showed up too, which was quite interesting because, although I’ve served our nation, I never knew that much about Ben’s service side.
All of us got together and it was so sad, TNY. I cannot reiterate how sad it was. A group of people who knew all the dimensions of this man, yet he wasn’t there. But, honestly, it was a lot of meeting new people and hearing really fucking funny stories too, which was dichotomous to the sadness. And then I got up in front of everyone, these people who held pieces of my friend, and I read my thing. I read his thing. Now, it was not a perfect read. It was not entirely clean. But I did it. I had to take a few breaths, sure. But it came out of me mostly clean and clear and I could hear everyone crying near the end and I knew I had done what I was supposed to do. I delivered Ben. Then other people got up and they brought stories and poems and we all agreed he was impossible to tell anyone about. But here we were, 40 or so people who didn’t have to explain him to each other. Because we already knew. It felt like…I don’t know. Like home. Like being safe. It was beautiful. And the most fucked up part of that beauty, and what I am really thinking about, is that if Ben had more of that before his life ended, we wouldn’t be crying over him.
I bitch a lot about not knowing where home is. Not going home. Can’t find home. On August 25th, 2023, I went Home. Guys, I got 24 hours of Home. There wasn’t a single corner of any room, there wasn’t a conversation, there wasn’t a hug that wasn’t absolutely filled with love and sadness and forgiveness and understanding and support. It was the absolute worst thing I could imagine myself doing. And I loved it. And I know I’m not alone. Everyone had a really hard day. But that’s how it is when someone goes away and the gain is turned up on all the sounds and the saturation on the colors. Everything hurt to touch, but everything felt necessary to touch, like tonguing a sore tooth.
I want to do it all over. And I never do it again.
So we gathered up our boy Ben (he was in a growler and a bunch of vials) and tromped off to the river where he exploded into the silt-heavy waters of the Matanuska (I lived in Alaska for six years and never realized that word has “anus” in the middle of it) and we all smooshed together for the rest of the day and late into the night. Every person had swollen eyes but I also haven’t heard that many people laugh that loudly and at such length in a very long time. I could write it in detail, everything that happened (because I was careful to not go too far with the substances, but I will tell you being on the two-person team that ate the double dose of chocolates so early in the day was maybe the best move I could have possibly done with my life (I saw the person that I am inside and want to be outside and it was really nice to see he was still in there, healthy and strong and ready to come out); I felt myself beautiful on the earth, it was really something)), but I don’t want to do it right now. Maybe you don’t need to know it all, TNY. What I’m here to say is that it was a full-value experience, that Ben would have loved it, and that doing that more often would have saved him. Flat out. Aw man, just registering that he isn’t here is fucking bullshit.
Around 0100, early on the 26th, we were all at a lake house in the middle of nowhere and Ben’s two oldest sons had been singing karaoke. They put on “Rocket Man” by Elton John. The lights were off in the room, it being lit by the giant TV everyone was facing. And the song fired up. The singing began. But it wasn’t just the boys. I looked around the room at these people that loved Ben. Ex wives and Marine chums and writing pals, maybe only a dozen of us at the end of a long day, and they all sang earnestly, some off-key, but they were all smiling, the light of the TV changing along with the video, and I watched yellows and oranges and whites dance across their faces, each and every one, and I was able to do something that Ben and I had talked about many times, something we struggled with; I was truly in that moment, that kind where you recognize that beauty is right there in front of you, and I didn’t try to hold on to it, I let it flow through me, and that’s what it was, TNY, it was room filled with people, all sharing the singular connection of one person who would never be in the room again. But he was in the room, guys; he was right there in the middle of it and I guarantee he would have struggled to handle how beautiful all of that was, how beautiful he was, how beautiful the family he made of us was, people who absolutely would not have intersected otherwise, all of us singing, “Oh I think it’s going to be a long long time,” each of our hearts having had a substantial chunk carved out of them, but for that moment, filling that hole right back up with each other.
Maybe that was just my experience. I’m not The Lorax and I can’t speak for the trees. But I can tell you I left there desperately missing my friend, Benjamin Pere Toche. And I also left there feeling like I was full with hope and love and I had joy in my heart.
And I know he wouldn’t want it any other way.
So yeah, I need to change. My friends have been not-so-subtly suggesting I don’t end up like him. That he and I were tight in that way. They aren’t wrong, guys. But what I learned from this whole experience is twofold. The first is if I don’t learn anything from his death, then his death is wasted. And two, that all I need is hope. For any of the things I want. Love. Home. Beauty. Joy. Happiness. Contentment. Satisfaction. Wellness. That if I have hope, I can have all of those things. At least some of the time. It’s when I lose hope, that’s when my future (which will be good, have no doubts, as long as it occurs) is in jeopardy. The other day I heard this thing about hope. Emily Dickenson’s “Hope”.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
That last line, that it never stops at all? That’s everything. We each have a bird inside us and it’s perched in our souls. And it sings. It sings always. Hope is always with us, singing so goddamn beautifully. There has never been a lack of hope, you see. Only an inability to hear the song.
Guys, I heard the song again. I heard the song because a man I love, who could not hear the song, died. And that’s fucking terrible. His death is something I’ll never get over. But maybe he has given me so many more years to try.
So here’s to you, big guy. We hate that you’re gone. But know that we’ll keep carrying you around with us, somewhere packed inside all of our souls, and the songs you’ll hear in each of us will be different, but every one will be hope.
Now, how do I talk about the story after that. Sheesh.
Well, it feels like it’s supposed to be a modern parable. But I didn’t get the lesson, so that part was lost on me. Likely my fault. The whole elephant mystery was only so-so compelling. It got me through the story, sure, but not with energy. In fact, the only part where I was plowing through with energy was the section where he drinks with the woman. Could have been because it was in scene, but it was also a second perspective on the elephant case.
The author left these weird little comments in the story as well, ones to make the narrative more real (e.g. the one in which the narrator apologized for the lists). I liked that shit. It was endearing and added so much life.
So, I wasn’t upset with the tale. It just didn’t move me.
But how could I be moved by a story when I saw real living, real dying, real beauty, and real hope this weekend?
Anyway, much love. To everyone. Even you, TNY. All of this is a privilege. Remember that. This whole thing…it’s a goddamn miracle.
Nick
